Iraqis Who Fled Mosul Say They Prefer Militants to Government

ERBIL, Iraq — After Islamic extremists swarmed his city this week, Saad Hussein fled here with his wife and six children. But after one night, he was on his way back home to Mosul, hearing that things were quiet there.

“What can we do?” said Mr. Hussein, at a checkpoint on the road from Erbil to Mosul. “You have to depend on your God.”

Another man stood nearby, his two small sons tugging at his belt. He had left Mosul and was waiting to enter Erbil, about 50 miles to the east.“We don’t know what will happen in the future,” said the man, Ahmed Ali, 31. “The government is not there. It’s empty.”

As many as 500,000 Iraqis fled Mosul this week after the city was besieged by the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, many of them Sunnis who seemed less fearful of the beheadings and summary justice that the group is known forthan of their own government and the barrage it might unleash in an effort to take the city back.

That many Sunnis would prefer to take their chances under a militant group so violent it was thrown out of Al Qaeda sharply illustrates how difficult it will be for the Iraqi government to reassert control. Any aggressive effort by Baghdad to retake the city could reinforce the Iraqi Army’s reputation as an occupying force, rather than a guarantor of security.

Many of those who fled said they were terrified of possible airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling that they have seen, in news reports, against insurgents in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, which has been out of government control for more than six months. Some, saying a rumor had been swirling through the local population, even worried that the Americans would be back to bomb their city. And most said the militants in Mosul had not terrorized the population and were keeping a low profile, with a small number of men in black masks staffing checkpoints.

“We are afraid it will be the same situation as in Falluja and Ramadi,” said a municipal worker who gave his name only as Abu Mohammed, for fear of losing his job. He was referring to the two cities in Anbar that have borne the brunt of government airstrikes, which have killed hundreds of civilians.

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Iraqis fled Mosul this week after a siege by Islamic extremists, with a large number taking refuge in Erbil.CreditOnur Coban/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images

A woman nearby, asked if the militants were harming people, waved her hands in the air and said: “No, no, no. On the contrary, they are welcoming the people.”

Comments like these represent a stark repudiation at the grass-roots level of the governing style of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and his policies that over the years have alienated the Sunni population.

“Maliki wants to end the Sunnis,” said Ahmed Hussain, a police officer in Mosul who abandoned his post after seeing the army leave. “Can you tell me how many Shiites are arrested on terror charges? Almost all those in prison are Sunnis. He is targeting us. I want to go back to Mosul, but we are afraid we’ll see another Falluja.”

Each security sweep that rounds up innocent Sunni men in the name of fighting terrorism has deepened resentment in the Sunni population toward the government, especially the Shiite-dominated army.

“They are not the Iraqi Army; they are the militia of Maliki,” said Abu Mohammed, 49. He also complained about corruption, which is endemic in the army and the police.

“If anyone gets into prison, he has to pay to get out,” he said. And there were smaller indignities, he said, such as when soldiers would demand money for allowing people to park on city streets.

As the militants advanced on the city this week, Iraqi Army soldiers quickly laid down their guns and fled, and many citizens were happy to see them go. “The Iraqi Army was tough on the people, not on ISIS,” said Abu Mohammed, referring to the extremist group.

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Thousands of Mosul residents continued to flee the violence in Iraq’s second-largest city after Al Qaeda-inspired militants seized the area.Published OnJune 12, 2014CreditImage by Associated Press

The events over the last several days in Mosul — which is majority Sunni, although it has a sizable population of Kurds and some Shiites, too — highlight what critics have said for years: that Sunnis see the army not as a national force but as the protector of the Shiite population. A Western diplomat, in a recent interview, said that in places such as Mosul and Anbar Province, the security forces are regarded as “a foreign force in their own country.”

But residents of Mosul say that so far the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has handled the local population with a light touch. Some residents, hardened by their hatred of the army, spoke of the insurgents almost as if they were a liberating army. The militants, residents said, greet people at checkpoints and ask citizens if they are carrying a weapon, and if the answer is no, they let them on their way.

Many spoke of being able to move around the city more freely for the first time in years, after the militants unblocked roads that the army had shut down for security reasons and took down the blast walls that had become a permanent feature of nearly every major Iraqi city over the last decade.

“So far, the militants have not harmed any civilians, and they have freed the city from the checkpoints that choke us,” said Ammar Saleh, 32, who works in a hospital in Mosul. Still, he added: “I can’t trust that the gunmen are better than the army. I will leave my family here until things are quiet.”

And the militants’ cordiality toward the local population may not last long. A leaflet, said to be produced by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and distributed Thursdayin Mosul, detailed a long list of coming rules, including the forbidding of alcohol and cigarettes, and requiring women to “stay home and not go out unless necessary.” The leaflet also said that anyone who worked for the government would be killed unless they sought “repentance.”

Whether out of fear of army retaliation or of what life might become under militant control, the crisis has displaced nearly a half-million people, about a quarter of Mosul’s population, according to the International Organization for Migration, to villages in the surrounding countryside, Baghdad, or here in the autonomous Kurdish region.

A mayor who was in charge of a small tent camp for the poorest of Mosul residents said that about 100,000 people had entered Erbil from Mosul in recent days. While many were allowed in, many others were not, especially if they were single men or had no family in the Kurdish region.

When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq and terrorized the Kurdish population, this was a place to flee from. Prosperous and secure, it is now considered a place to flee to, and the caring for refugees, by now, resembles a permanent institution. Trucks bearing the face of Masoud Barzani, the leader of this region, carried in watermelons and mattresses, and volunteers handed out water and bread and cheese.

Thousands fled here during the sectarian war in 2006 and 2007, and over the last year, tens of thousands of Syrians have sought refuge, as have displaced people from Anbar. It is also where former top Sunni officials have come to escape arrest warrants issued by the Maliki government and where, during Mr. Hussein’s rule, C.I.A. operatives plotted with dissidents to topple the government.

With security, the region has also advanced economically, and on the stretch of road that refugees traveled from Mosul, a lone billboard greeted them with an advertisement for Park View, a luxury apartment complex in Erbil with concierge services and a health club.

One of the Mosul residents who escaped to Erbil was Atheel Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh Province, where Mosul is. In an interview on Thursday, he said that one of the reasons Mosul was quiet on Thursday — and the citizens felt comfortable returning — was the presence of other groups, like tribal militias and a group led by former Baathist officers, in addition to the Islamists.

“The situation quieted down, and ISIS is not the only force in control in Mosul,” said Mr. Nujaifi, who considers himself too much of a target to return just yet. “And we tried to keep everything as it is — the electricity, water, everything. That’s why the people feel comfortable going back.”

Mr. Nujaifi said it would be nearly impossible for government forces to retake Mosul anytime soon, especially with militant advances in other cities blocking the way for troop reinforcements from Baghdad. He also advised against the army’s return, he said.

What Mr. Nujaifi is trying to do, he said, is unite the many local fighting groups into one force to try to push out the extremists, many of whom are foreign fighters.

“This will happen soon,” he predicted.

Falih Hassan and Suadad al-Salhy contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Choosing Rebels Over Army, Iraqis Head Home. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe